ABC's of Higher Education. Getting Back to the Basics: An Activity-Based Costing Approach to Planning and Financial Decision Making. AIR 1999 Annual Forum Paper

This paper describes the activity-based costing approach used to report and capture the time spent by faculty for specified activities at one Midwestern university. For each department, four major areas (instruction, research, public service, and administration) and 14 activities were identified. Du...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors Cox, Kelline S, Downey, Ronald G, Smith, Laurinda G
Format Report
LanguageEnglish
Published 01.06.1999
Subjects
Activity Based Costing
AIR Forum
Budgeting
College Faculty
Cost Estimates
Decision Making
Educational Finance
Higher Education
Resource Allocation
Time Management
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Summary:This paper describes the activity-based costing approach used to report and capture the time spent by faculty for specified activities at one Midwestern university. For each department, four major areas (instruction, research, public service, and administration) and 14 activities were identified. During the annual goal-setting period, each faculty member and the department head allotted the faculty member's time for the following academic year using the 14 identified activities. Funding allocation decisions at the department level were based on these staff assignments. Two reports were derived from the process. The first report showed the state dollar amount allocated for each of the four areas for each department. The second report provided data on faculty time utilization within the four general activity areas. Finally, university data were compared to national norms based on results from a triennial national survey. Evaluation of the process after three years determined that training and better provisions of information to departments and units was needed. (Contains 11 references.) (DB)